We aim to achieve better health for poor and vulnerable communities in Australia and internationally through research, education and public health

Contacts

Associate Professor Melissa Churchill

Head, Churchill Laboratory

Background

Molecular virologist Associate Professor Melissa Churchill is Head of the HIV Neuropathogenesis Laboratory at the Burnet Institute. Her research interests include HIV infection of the central nervous system, and its implications for the development of HIV associated neurocognitive disorders and the establishment of HIV viral reservoirs. In particular her interests include studying the mechanisms by which HIV enters the CNS, infects cells of the CNS and the regulatory mechanisms involved in the establishment of a latent CNS viral infection.

In 1993 Professor Churchill completed her PhD based at the Burnet Institute receiving an NHMRC fellowship to undertake postdoctoral training in the Department of Gene Expression Sciences at SmithKline Galaxo in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

On returning to Australia in 1996 she advanced to co-head the HIV AIDS Molecular Biology unit at the Burnet Institute. In 2007 she joined the HIV-1 Neurovirology Research group at the Burnet Institute and now heads the HIV Neuropathogenesis Laboratory. Professor Churchill is an Associate Professor in the department of Medicine and the department of Microbiology at Monash University.